High-speed Rail from New York to Chicago should be the top priority of rail funding once the current round of amtrak expansion finishes and California High-speed Rail opens
Also Electrification and speed increases of DC to Richmond would be a high priority
Intermediate stops on the Chicago to NYC HSR would probably be Albany, Utica, Syracuse, Rochester, Buffalo, Erie, Cleveland, Toledo and maybe South Bend
This would alignment would hit most major cities between the 2 and allow for connections to Toronto and Detroit via Buffalo and Toledo respectively
Toronto-Buffalo-NYC would likely get built as a branch line that would use a high speed alignment in Canada between Quebec City, Montreal, Toronto, London and Windsor /Detroit
Why is Chicago to NYC a Priority over Southern HSR or Cadcadia?
Chicago to New York connects the 1st and 3rd largest cities in the US, and allows for revitalization of the rust belt which is critical for the future of the US as the climate worsens in the south. Additionally Buffalo, Cleveland, Chicago and NYC all have higher order transit already in place that could synergies well with the Alignment. Also NYC is already the hub for all HSR in the US that is currently active making it an obvious choice for building new infrastructure as there is existing infrastructure to use
Why is the Routing Going through Western New York instead of Pennsylvania?
I think Pennsylvania would be better served by a separate NYC - Philadelphia - Harrisburg - Pittsburgh - Erie, PA line which could be built later and allow for more frequent PA service
Also going through New York instead of PA is more politically feasible as NY already has a lot of support for Rail and makes sure the rail goes through more states giving the route more political support because PA would still have a stop in Erie.
Here is roughly the routing I am imagining for the train, I sketched this quickly so there would be obvious changes for Geography and cities but roughly this is the routing it could take
This work better if it is a higher-speed rail. That amount of population is waaay too small.
Issue here is:
1) The city population is not only too small, but it population projection is either stagnated or likely decreased. So, any revenue or federal fund will be wasted.
2) that is very hilly area, and the cost will be huge to tunneling. The majority of CAHSR budgets - $130 billion- is only for tunneling in Diablo Range, Antelope Valley hills, and through Los Angeles Basin hills. Only $15 billion is needed for rail between Merced and Bakersfield.
I envison a mix of High Speed and Higher Speed depending on Area akin to the Acela, partially because of the worries about hills, but I think the Hudson Valley is probably the best way to connect NYC and Chicago which is essential for a future Hish speed rail network and we would save money and time due to how flat it is along lake Erie and in Ohio and Indiana.
Also the city population is likely to improve due to internal climate migration and we want this to be built as soon as possible due to that as well. Additionally this project would be a huge boost for the economies of the Rust belt
This area is not significantly hilly (source: I live here). There’s a reason it’s called the “Water Level Route”. It specifically avoids the Appalachian mountains by traveling thru the Hudson and Mohawk River valleys, then stays close to the Great Lakes to avoid the hills south of them. No tunneling at all is necessary, as there are basically no significant grades (the approach to Buffalo from eastern NY is quite gradual, and Buffalo is functionally the same elevation as Chicago). This makes it by far the simplest NYC-Chicago HSR route to engineer.
Yeah that’s the big reason for route, its flat and it hits a lot of good cities and while it misses Pittsburgh, I think that’s fine because dear God are those mountains bad in Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania HSR is a great idea but the mountains make it such a pain
